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May 14, 2006

Laura Bush, Mary Cheney, Roundtable

Fox News Sunday

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I'm Chris Wallace. A new report that Vice President Cheney wanted even more eavesdropping on Americans' phone calls, next on "Fox News Sunday".

The Bush presidency at a turning point. What can be done about dropping poll numbers, the NSA phone records controversy, and the slow pace of rebuilding the Gulf Coast? We'll find out in a rare Sunday talk show interview with first lady Laura Bush.

You decide, 2006. Will Republicans push for a ban on same sex marriage to energize their base? We'll examine the politics of gay rights and discuss her father, the vice president, with Mary Cheney in her only Sunday interview.

Plus, does President Bush have a new immigration plan to protect our borders? We'll ask our panel, Brit Hume, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams. And our Power Player of the Week, teaching us about life and death, all right now on "Fox News Sunday".

Good morning again and happy Mother's Day from Fox News in Washington. Let's start with a quick check of the latest headlines.

The New York Times reports today that after the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Cheney wanted the National Security Agency to intercept purely domestic calls and e-mails without warrants in the hunt for terrorists. NSA lawyers under General Michael Hayden insisted that only calls in and out of the country could be legally monitored.

And Fox News has confirmed that handwritten notes by Vice President Cheney are now part of a criminal case against Cheney's former chief of staff Scooter Libby. In the notes Cheney asks whether Ambassador Joe Wilson had been sent to Niger on a junket by his wife, Valerie Plame, who was a CIA officer.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald says in a court filing the notes prove Cheney and Libby were focused on discrediting Wilson. More on both of these stories later.

Well, these are tough times for the Bush White House, and who better to discuss all of it than the president's most trusted adviser, first lady Laura Bush?

We spoke with Mrs. Bush in the Vermet (ph) Room, also called the First Lady's Room, on the ground floor of the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: Mrs. Bush, thank you for inviting us to the White House and welcome to "Fox News Sunday".

LAURA BUSH, FIRST LADY: Great. Thanks very much, Chris.

WALLACE: Sitting in this room surrounded by the portraits of seven first ladies -- Lady Bird Johnson is looking down on us -- I know that many of these first ladies played roles as key advisers to their presidents, and as Nancy Reagan once told me, during the second term, they're more willing to talk about that.

BUSH: That's probably right.

WALLACE: So let me ask you, what role do you play on policy and personnel for your husband?

BUSH: Well, as I've said all along, you know, our conversations obviously are private. But we talk about policy. I talk about education, because that's what I'm really interested in.

We talk about -- because I've traveled to Africa a number of times, we talk about the president's emergency relief plan for AIDS and the various sites that I've been able to visit in Africa where that relief is being offered to people with AIDS.

We talk about personalities, of course. We talk about personnel in the sense that I know everyone who works over there and have known them for years, just like he has. And I won't tell you what we said about that, though.

WALLACE: Well, let me ask you about that, though. Now, I don't want names -- well, I'd like names, but I'll settle for just the issue. Andy Card, the former White House chief of staff, said that you sometimes weigh in against possible appointees.

BUSH: Against.

WALLACE: Against and for. What makes your antennae go up about staff?

BUSH: Well, I guess it's different about different people, but there are a lot of people that I like a lot that I think are great. Andy Card is certainly one of them. I love Andy Card, actually, like a brother. We spent a lot of time with him for the last five years. And Kathy, his wife, is a very good friend of mine.

I love Josh Bolten. I've spent time with him. He came down to Texas before George even ran and lived in Texas and has worked with us for all that time. And so I'll talk about people that I admire or that I think will do a really good job in a different spot, but it's very informal.

A lot of our conversation, of course, like most couples, is about our kids or what we're going to do tomorrow or those sort of mundane conversations.

WALLACE: According to the polls, your husband now has the third lowest approval rating of any president over the last 50 years, better only than Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, and he's even losing some support among conservatives.

As someone whose, I'm sure you know, approval ratings are double your husband's, why do you think the American people are beginning to lose confidence in your husband?

WALLACE: Well, I don't think they are, and I don't really believe those polls. I travel around the country. I see people. I see their response to my husband. I see their response to me.

There are a lot of difficult challenges right now in the United States. We face many, many challenges, unprecedented challenges, when you think about the huge area of destruction after Hurricane Katrina or a war on terror. All of these things are new, really, for the American people.

The idea of a terrorist attack on September 11th and then this huge hurricane that devastated the entire Mississippi coast and, of course, New Orleans, one of our great cities -- all of those decisions that the president has to make surrounding each one of these very difficult challenges are hard. They're hard decisions to make.

And of course, some people are unhappy about what some of those decisions are. But I think people know that he is doing what he thinks is right for the United States, that he's doing what he -- especially in the war on terror, what he thinks he is obligated to do for the people in the United States, and that is to protect them.

And as I travel around the United States, I see a lot of appreciation for him. A lot of people come up to me and say stay the course. And I think right now what we're seeing with these poll numbers is a lot of fun in the press with taking a poll every other week and putting it on the news, on the front page of the newspaper. When his polls were really high, they weren't on the front page.

WALLACE: But let me ask you about the war on terror. We'll talk about Katrina in a moment. Now there's this new controversy, the revelation that the National Security Agency is collecting phone call records of tens of millions of Americans.

First of all, I want to ask you, what do you make of the series of leaks over the last few months of some of the top secrets in this country about how we're fighting the war on terror?

BUSH: Well, of course, I don't like that, because I think that hamstrings us in the war on terror, and the president vowed to protect the people of the United States, and that's what he has to do.

It's a very interesting conversation that we're having across the United States about this right now, because if intelligence activities had not been authorized by the president within the law, as they are, and we had a terrorist attack, people would -- the question would be the opposite, why haven't you been trying to track Al Qaida or links to Al Qaida in the United States.

That's where the intelligence activities are focused, and it's his obligation as president to protect the people, and I think the American people understand that.

WALLACE: Do you think these leaks are an attempt to undercut his policies?

BUSH: Probably. But I have no idea.

WALLACE: People within the government who are trying to undercut...

BUSH: I have no idea, really, because I don't know who they are. But I assume it's either that or they just want to act like they know a lot.

WALLACE: How do you respond, though, to the concern that we're hearing a lot from Americans since the revelation of this program, that this is big brother invading our privacy?

BUSH: Well, you don't really hear that from a lot of Americans. I don't hear that from a lot of Americans. I know that Americans expect the president and the United States government to fiercely protect their privacy, and that's what they do.

These are links to Al Qaida that they follow, and I also know that the American people expect their government to do that, to protect them however they can within the law, to protect our country from another terrorist attack.

WALLACE: Another issue that has, as you said, been tough for the president, has been the fallout from Hurricane Katrina. I know you have been to the region 11 times, that you're deeply involved in rebuilding schools and libraries.

As the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaches -- I'm going to ask you to put on your hat as a former teacher -- would grade would you give the response by the federal government?

BUSH: Actually, I think -- you know, you could say a medium grade, somewhere in the middle, but I will say...

WALLACE: A gentleman's C?

BUSH: No, I think I'd maybe give them a B.

WALLACE: Oh, you're grading on the curve.

BUSH: Well, shall we talk about the response of every single government, the federal government, the local government, the state government? Is there room for a lot of improvement? Absolutely.

But I don't know if people really realize how huge the devastation is. I don't know how many people have been down there to see. I do know that millions of volunteers have gone down there.

I'm going to speak later to the Red Cross volunteers who are in town for their convention to thank them for what they've done. Every time I've been there, I've run into Red Cross volunteers from all over our country who do that because they want to volunteer and because they want to help people.

The Southern Baptist Convention has cooked. I think they're still there cooking for people. It's a huge problem, and when you look at these communities that have schools that are devastated and businesses that are devastated, so they don't really have a tax base anymore, but if they can't build schools, people won't come back, because people can only come back when there's a school for their children to go to.

So it shows how huge the problem is, but also what a response it demands from our government as well as from individuals around the country.

WALLACE: We're also on this program going to be talking to Mary Cheney, and I want to talk to you briefly about gay rights. As you well know, dozens of families, gay families, brought their children here to the Easter egg roll.

Karl Rove and congressional Republicans are planning to reintroduce a constitutional amendment this summer to ban same sex marriages and, they say, also to mobilize the conservative base.

First of all, do you support such an amendment and, secondly, what do you think about using it as a campaign...

BUSH: Well, I didn't know Karl was an elected official, but...

WALLACE: No, but he's got some influence.

BUSH: The Easter egg roll is open to all families. And families had a wonderful time, even though it was a rainy day. It was raining on everyone, but they had a wonderful time at the Easter egg roll, and I'm glad that families were able to come to the Easter egg roll.

It's the one event at the White House that's open to children all year, and it's totally designed for children. You can't come as an adult unless you're accompanied by a child under the age of eight. And it's a very, very happy and wonderful tradition at the White House, and it was just as happy and wonderful this year as it ever has been.

WALLACE: If I may press my question, what do you think of the constitutional amendment and the idea of using it as a campaign tool?

BUSH: Well, I don't think it should be used as a campaign tool, obviously. But I do think it's something that people in the United States want to debate. And it requires a lot of sensitivity to talk about the issue, a lot of sensitivity.

People, I have found, over the country don't want the governor of Massachusetts or the mayor of San Francisco to make the choice for them -- the courts of Massachusetts, I should say. So I think it deserves debate. I think it's something that people want to talk about.

WALLACE: I saw a picture of your husband from 2001 recently. BUSH: And he still had dark hair?

WALLACE: Well, you know where I'm headed. He has aged. Haven't we all in the last five years, I must say, except for you? But the hair is grayer, the lines a little bit more pronounced.

And I want to take advantage of your position as someone who, you know, sees him in his private moments. How much of a strain is it for him and has it been for years to be a wartime president who sends our young men and women into battle and who has to get up every morning feeling the responsibility of keeping the country safe?

BUSH: Well, of course, it's huge. It's unbelievable. And what you just said is the most difficult part of all, and that is to know that young American men and women are in harm's way. And you know, it's very, very difficult.

But no one said it was going to be easy when he ran for president, and he's got a lot of strength. He's a really strong man with some broad shoulders, which I appreciate.

WALLACE: Do you notice the grayer hair and the lines?

BUSH: Sure. You know, not really. I mean, when you live with someone every single day, you don't see every sign. I notice it if I see old pictures of him and myself, I'll add.

WALLACE: No, I don't think so about you, Mrs. Bush. But anyway, finally, on this Mother's Day, do you have a message that you would like to deliver and especially to the mothers of young Americans who are serving overseas in the military?

BUSH: Well, I want to say happy Mother's Day to mothers all over the United States and to my own mother, who I hope is watching this. But I also hope that mothers know everywhere how much -- especially the mothers of our deployed troops, how much the people of the United States stand with them and how many prayers are said for our troops and for their families.

Everywhere I go, people tell me that, that they're praying for them and they want the very, very best for them. And so I want them to know that.

I also want them to know that their loved ones are performing a wonderful task. The idea of being able to have a democracy in Iraq for three -- for Iraq to have had three huge elections where millions of people showed up even though there were threats of violence.

Iraq is trying to build its government right now, and I think if it's successful, which I truly believe it will be, that Iraq will end up being a beacon of hope, a beacon of democracy in the Middle East.

In Afghanistan, women can walk outside their doors now, girls can go to school, and girls and women in Afghanistan are so hungry for education that most schools have three schedules, with little kids going in the morning, and older children going in the afternoon, and then their parents going to school at night.

So those are huge accomplishments that we have been able to make as Americans because of our troops. So I want to thank all the mothers around the country, too, for their love and their strong support for their children everywhere, whether their children are in the military or not.

WALLACE: Well, Mrs. Bush, we want to thank you. And happy Mother's Day to you.

BUSH: Thanks so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And again, our thanks to Mrs. Bush and her White House staff.

Next up, Mary Cheney on presidential politics, the fall campaign, and her dad, the vice president. Back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: Joining us now to discuss growing up in the political spotlight is the author of a new book, "Now It's My Turn", Mary Cheney, daughter of the vice president.

Ms. Cheney, welcome to "Fox News Sunday".

MARY CHENEY, AUTHOR: Thanks. Glad to be here.

WALLACE: Let's start with the news reports today about your father. The New York Times says, as I know you know, that the vice president wanted even more extensive spying on Americans after 9/11.

You know how Washington works. What do you make of the leaking of this story to try to make General Hayden look good by showing that he stood up to the big bad vice president?

CHENEY: Well, you know, I -- the way I look at it is, you know, I'm pretty sure it doesn't come to anybody as a secret that my dad has always taken a hard line when it comes to the war on terror and keeping this country safe.

And you know, whatever internal debates may have been going on, I would want to point out that it's been five years since this country has been hit, and that is not an accident. And before anybody starts questioning what programs have been going on, and before we start debating whether appropriate or not, I would urge caution before we start changing what has been so successful in the past five years.

WALLACE: You say that he takes a hard line on protecting the country.

CHENEY: I think that's a good thing.

WALLACE: I'm not saying it isn't. I would like to ask, and you're not here -- and I'm going to get off this very quickly -- to talk for your dad, but there's a balance that people are trying to draw here between national security on the one hand and civil liberties on the other. How do you think he draws that balance?

CHENEY: He's always been very clear that, you know, we need to follow the law. We need to make sure that what we're doing is legal. But he also makes it clear that we need to do whatever it takes to keep this country safe.

WALLACE: This gets at the concern that some people have about your dad, who -- as you know, his approval ratings are down in the teens. You have said that some people think of him as Darth Vader.

CHENEY: I wish I could take credit for coming up with that term. Somebody else did.

WALLACE: Well, it probably was George Lucas. But anyway, some people have compared him to the Grinch.

What I think bothers people, whether it's justified or not, is a sense that he doesn't have much patience for or much respect for criticism from the press, criticism from congressional critics, that he feels he knows best. How do you think the reality jibes with that perception?

CHENEY: It's not even close. My dad has always been extremely respectful of people who disagree with him. Part of what makes this country so great is that we do have debates and discussions, that we can disagree.

But he also -- and he has this great ability to take in, you know, every piece of information before he comes to a decision. But you know, ultimately, he's going to base his decision and his position on what he knows is right and what is in the best interests of this country.

WALLACE: Let's turn to your story.

CHENEY: Okay.

WALLACE: And I want to start by going back to the 2004 campaign and the vice presidential debate where your father and John Edwards were asked a question about a constitutional amendment on same sex marriage, and John Edwards decided that he would say the following. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EDWARDS: I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: You were sitting in the audience that night in Edwards' line of sight. What did you think and what did you do?

CHENEY: I was in the very front row, and I was very angry, as was the rest of my family, because it was such a cheap and blatant political ploy on behalf of Senator Edwards.

You know, my initial reaction was one I'm not necessarily sure is appropriate to share on television, but...

WALLACE: You mouthed an expletive, correct?

CHENEY: That would be a good way to put it, yes.

WALLACE: And your mom and your sister?

CHENEY: My mom and my sister took a slightly higher road. They stuck their tongues out at him.

WALLACE: And did the senator see the Cheney women?

CHENEY: I honestly don't know. We were in the front row just a few feet from him. I don't see how he could have missed us. But I honestly don't know.

WALLACE: Then in the final presidential debate, the question was whether homosexuality is a choice. Here's what Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KERRY: I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Why do you think that Kerry and Edwards went out of their way to point out your sexual orientation in the middle of a presidential campaign?

CHENEY: You know, obviously, I was not part of any of John Kerry or John Edwards' debate preps, and I've heard different theories about why they would have done it. I think probably the one that's most believable is that they wanted to make sure that everybody who might have a problem with it knew that Dick Cheney had a gay daughter.

WALLACE: And what do you think of that? CHENEY: I think it was a pretty sleazy thing to do.

WALLACE: On the other hand, in the midst of the 2004 presidential campaign, George W. Bush also made an issue out of same sex marriage. Let's take a look at what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: You say in your book that the president wanted to write discrimination into the constitution.

CHENEY: I think that is what the federal marriage amendment is. It is writing discrimination into the constitution.

WALLACE: So why do you think he was doing it?

CHENEY: I don't want to speak on behalf of President Bush, but I think...

WALLACE: But you were a lot closer to those conversations...

CHENEY: I was.

WALLACE: ... than you were to the Kerry-Edwards ones.

CHENEY: Right. But you know, President Bush obviously feels very strongly about this issue. Obviously, it's one that I disagree with him on, and I talk about it a great deal in the book.

But you know, it was an issue during the 2004 campaign. Quite honestly, it was an issue I had some trouble with, as I talk about in the book. I came very close to quitting my job on the re-election campaign over this very issue.

WALLACE: As you just heard me discuss with Mrs. Bush, Senate Republicans, with the support, perhaps at the urging of Karl Rove, plan to introduce an amendment next month once again, a constitutional amendment, to ban same sex marriage, at least in part, it is said, to mobilize their conservative base.

You talked about what the Democrats did as cheap. In the book you talk about sleazy, slimy politics. Is what the Republicans are engaged in sleazy and slimy politics?

CHENEY: Well, I certainly don't know what conversations have gone on between Karl and anybody up on the Hill. But you know, what I can say is look, amending the constitution with this amendment, this piece of legislation, is a bad piece of legislation. It is writing discrimination into the constitution, and, as I say, it is fundamentally wrong. Now, I would certainly hope that, you know, and understand, this is an issue that Americans do disagree on and that we do need to debate and discuss. And I would certainly hope that those discussions would continue.

And I would also hope that no one would think about trying to amend the constitution as a political strategy, that people wouldn't try and use amending the constitution to further their own political goals.

WALLACE: Now that you have gone public with this book, if this measure does come up, if there is an effort by Republicans to amend the constitution, will you speak out against it?

CHENEY: I think I just did. I think I just made my position pretty darn clear.

WALLACE: Are you going to continue, though, as it becomes more of a debate this summer?

CHENEY: Whenever people ask me about it, I will give them the exact same answer.

WALLACE: I was on the podium at the 2004 convention and couldn't help but notice that after your father's speech -- and you can see the pictures there -- there were your mom and dad, there was your sister and her husband Phil, and your, what, four nieces and I guess there's another one.

CHENEY: Yes. Well, actually, it's three nieces. Phillip, the youngest...

WALLACE: Ah, OK.

CHENEY: ... and then number five is on the way.

WALLACE: Conspicuously absent were you and your partner, Heather. The party platform that year, the party platform that had been adopted by the Republican Party at that convention, came out against gay adoption, against same sex marriage. On gay rights, is the official position of the Republican Party intolerant?

CHENEY: I think what's really important to remember, Chris, is that my job in 2004 -- the reason I spent, you know, a year and a half of my life working on the re-election campaign wasn't because of the Republican Party platform. It was because I believed in the leadership of George Bush and Dick Cheney.

It was because I knew how important that election was, how important for the future of this country, for the safety of this country, for the war on terror. That's why I worked on that campaign in 2004. It wasn't because of the Republican Party platform.

WALLACE: I want to talk about the other side of this, because I'm sure there are a lot of viewers out here who, you know, disagree with you very strongly, have their own opinions and are very much opposed to the idea of gay adoption and same sex marriage and all of that.

And I want you to answer that question. I want you to look at this quote from The Weekly Standard. "Once we say that gay couples have a right to have their commitments recognized by the state, it becomes next to impossible to deny the same right to polygamists, polyamorists," which I learned means group marriage, "or even cohabiting relatives and friends."

How do you respond to the slippery slope argument?

CHENEY: It's one that I don't take very seriously. You know, look. What we are talking about are relationships between two consenting adults. I think that is the debate that we need to have. That is the discussion that our country needs to have.

I think it's a mistake for people to start throwing around, you know, polygamy or -- incest, I think, was one of the other ones you mentioned. It's a completely different ball of wax.

WALLACE: Finally, when I told people that I was going to be interviewing you, one of the questions I got most often was why now. After you protected your privacy so zealously, why go public at all? And if you were going to do it, why do it at this particular time?

CHENEY: The reason I wrote the book is -- well, actually, there's several reasons I wrote the book. One of them is because it has been six years since my dad first was nominated to be vice president.

And during that time, everyone from the media to activists on both ends of the political spectrum, to the Democratic nominee for president have all expressed their opinions about me, and now -- well, it's my turn.

WALLACE: Good name for a book.

CHENEY: I thought so.

WALLACE: Mary Cheney, we want to thank you so much for coming in. And good luck with the book.

CHENEY: Thank you very much, Chris.

WALLACE: Coming up, our Sunday regulars on the new push for immigration reform. Will a presidential crackdown on the borders break the impasse? Some answers ahead. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN EICHLER, MINUTEMAN PROJECT: It is now time for those people on Capitol Hill -- if you will not protect the constitution, if you will not protect our liberties, then you will be voted out of office.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was Stephen Eichler from the Minutemen Project challenging Congress to protect our borders.

And it's time now for our Sunday gang, Brit Hume, Washington managing editor of Fox News, and Fox News contributors Mara Liasson of National Public Radio, Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, and Juan Williams, also from National Public Radio.

Well, the president addresses the nation Monday night on illegal immigration, especially efforts to protect our border, and we should point out to all of you that we will be covering the president's speech live at 8 p.m. eastern Monday night both on the Fox News Channel and on the Fox broadcast network.

But in the meantime, Brit, how important is the president's speech at this particular moment in the debate over immigration reform?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS WASHINGTON MANAGING EDITOR: It's a huge deal for him politically, because in all of the areas of his sagging poll numbers, the one that has to really be alarming to him and to his advisers is that he is losing support in his conservative base.

And the issue that that seems most associated with is the issue of immigration and immigration reform. A lot of conservatives see Bush as soft on illegal immigration, and in some sense they have a point in the sense that he has urged this guest worker program.

He refuses to call it an amnesty, and there are powerful reasons why it's sort of unfair to call it that, but that's what a lot of hard-line Republicans think it is. So what he is in the situation now of trying to do is to boost the chances of Congress acting on immigration.

My sense is that he's going to come out for a strong enforcement program, going beyond what he has urged before, and at the same time sticking by his guns on a guest worker program in the hopes that out of Congress he can get a combination of both.

MARA LIASSON, NPR: Yes, I agree with that, but that he also, I think, might talk about the other piece of that -- the guest worker program and the border security are important. But also, the president actually hasn't come out and talked in detail about what he really thinks about a path to citizenship.

And that's something that's in the bill that he supposedly supports that's going to come out of the Senate. The only thing he's said up until now is people who are here in this country illegally shouldn't get to cut in line -- in other words, they shouldn't be ahead of people who are applying legally back in their own home countries. So I think he would probably do well to clarify some of that.

But, look, I agree. This is an extremely important piece of legislation. It's kind of the centerpiece of his policy agenda, yet he hasn't devoted the kind of attention that he did to, say, Social Security reform. I mean, he was out there all the time.

He's never really had the conversation with the American people where he explains how these two pieces of it work together, why it's important for the country, and I think he has in the meantime suffered tremendous erosion in his conservative base, and he needs to get them back.

WALLACE: Bill, do you think in giving this speech -- and we have gotten some hints as to what he's going to say in this speech -- that the White House is, in effect, acknowledging that they have messed up in the way they've handled immigration reform, that he has talked too much about the guest worker program and not enough about job one, which is enforcing the borders?

BILL KRISTOL, WEEKLY STANDARD: No, I think, actually, he's done a good job on immigration, contrasted with Social Security, which Mara mentioned. Two thousand and five was a failed legislative year because the centerpiece of the president's domestic program, Social Security, never even got to the floor, never even became legislation that was introduced, actually.

He is going to win, I think, on the centerpiece of his legislative agenda in 2006, which is immigration reform. He shouldn't kowtow too much to people who want him only to talk about border security and the National Guard.

He should be for border security, but he needs to make the case for comprehensive immigration reform which gives the 11 million or 12 million illegal immigrants who are here a path to earn citizenship if they want that. Some of them will want to go home. I think he should -- he really needs to lay this out.

But I think he's actually -- they have done a good job in the last, actually, couple of months on their legislative strategy on immigration reform. Two months ago, the consensus was they can't get that through this bitterly divided Congress this year.

One month ago, when Harry Reid pulled the plug on the Senate debate, people thought ooh, that bows (ph) it up. They've done a good tactical job. It's an important piece of legislation. I've talked to people in the White House, and the president is considering giving the whole speech in Spanish. That would be a good...

WALLACE: So why, if they've done such a good job, Juan, do you think the president is going to give -- and certainly, the parts that they've been putting out are -- is the enforcement side of it?

JUAN WILLIAMS, NPR: Well, the enforcement is going to be the message. I think that's the theme and, in large part, plays to the party base. I think this is part of a strategy that we've seen play out over the last few weeks with the president's poll numbers way down -- talk about, you know -- not just talk, but action on tax cuts, talk about conservative judges, and now the hard line on immigration, which is secure the borders.

But you know, I mean, there's no -- there's little reality to it. I mean, if you think about it, the terrorists come over the Canadian border, and they're not talking about putting troops on the Canadian border. They're talking about the Mexican border.

And when they talk about the Mexican border, what are they really going to do? Can you really stop that? I don't think you can really stop people effectively. Maybe you can stop them in some communities. You can maybe please the Minutemen and that guy you saw ranting, but in terms of actually doing something about terrorism, not an element -- doing something about...

WALLACE: Well, it's not just terrorism.

WILLIAMS: Well, that's often cited as a key reason that we're taking this step.

WALLACE: Well, how about the 11 million illegals who are in the country?

WILLIAMS: Well, I think that's a bigger issue, Chris, and I don't think it's going to effectively stop it. I think that the president, as Bill said, is on the right track with this. I think he believes that we can find a way to do this effectively so that people don't just escape and, you know, live in this country illegally.

We've got to deal with it. We've got to deal with employers and the fact that they want these workers. They want illegal workers because it's cheap labor.

HUME: They don't want them it -- well, you may be right that you can never stop this, but we don't really know whether you can or not. And the sense, I think -- what's causing the president headaches on this issue is the sense that people have that he and the administration and the country in general haven't tried hard enough.

It would be one thing if, you know, an enormous and obvious effort had been expended to massively increase border security and it hadn't worked. But the perception, I think, that's hurting the president politically is the perception that nowhere near all that could be done has been done, and therefore he's vulnerable on this.

And it would be very difficult for him or for Congress to pass a measure that does not include serious new efforts on border security. That's the political reality of it.

On the other side of this, Mara said that the president has not discussed the path to citizenship, but that's always been part of the undergirding of his proposal, that those who stay here and work in the guest worker program, for example, would over time, after some number of years, have to go to the back of the line, not be considered ahead of those applying from other countries, but would have a path to citizenship.

That's what gives rise to the word amnesty, which I think it's fair to argue this is not. But that's very controversial.

WALLACE: Mara, let's talk a little bit about this question of whether or not it's going to work or not.

LIASSON: Yes.

WALLACE: The president apparently is going to call -- we're not quite sure of the legality of it, the way he's going to do it -- some mobilization of National Guard troops, we're told up to 10,000, along the border with Mexico.

Already a couple of the key governors -- Schwarzenegger of California, Richardson of New Mexico -- have expressed concerns about this, saying that the National Guard is already stretched thin, that they are, you know, just coming back from deployment in Iraq, that they're being used for natural disasters, wildfires in New Mexico. Is it going to work?

LIASSON: Well, yes, and they're arguing about it on the practical level, not on a policy level. Well, that's a big question. I mean, we have a finite number of National Guard troops. That's something that the president can do right away, to say I'm going to federalize the National Guard and put them into a different capacity, in other words, actually...

HUME: On this issue.

LIASSON: ... on this issue, law enforcement along the border instead of just assisting border control agents.

What Bill Richardson says is I need more border control agents, you know, my National Guard troops are already thin, where are you going to take them from. So there are some questions about that.

But I also think the other question politically is can he convince his restive conservative base and especially large numbers of Republicans in the House to accept the earned legalization part of this bill if he convinces them that he is truly tough on border security.

I mean, that might not follow. They have to swallow hard and accept something that, right now, they are adamantly opposed to.

WALLACE: Well, and I want to ask you about that, Bill, because you were about to declare victory and say oh, he's going to get a bill through. I mean, even if he gets it through the Senate, do you really think that there's a deal to be made between this comprehensive Senate package and hard-line enforcement only in the House?

KRISTOL: Yes. I mean, I think he can get enough House Republicans, including Chairman Sensenbrenner -- he will lose 50 or 60 House Republicans on final passage of the conference report, but I think he can get a bill. I think it will be a big victory for him.

And I don't buy the argument that this is hurting him even among an appreciable number of conservatives. Conservatives are drifting away from the president for the same reason everyone else is, that people have lost confidence to some degree in the administration's foreign policy, primarily.

This will be a very big legislative victory. He shouldn't be defensive. He shouldn't feel he has to reassure everyone that he's doing something silly with border patrol agents. He should defend the whole comprehensive immigration reform bill, I think.

WALLACE: All right. We have to take a break here, but coming up, a new controversy over the National Security Agency and the phone calls all of us make. Our panel weighs in on that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 1973, NASA launched Skylab, the nation's first space station. The program's goals were to prove that man could live and work in space and to study solar astronomy.

Stay tuned for more from our panel and our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

U.S. SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything. Are we just going to collect their phone information for the heck of it?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was President Bush and Senator Pat Leahy talking about the news this week that the NSA is collecting records on trillions of American phone calls.

And we're back now with Brit, Mara, Bill and Juan. Well, the newspaper USA Today created quite a stir this week with the report that the NSA has built up this enormous database of phone call records. No eavesdropping, no content, no names, but records of phone calls, what numbers called other numbers, when and for how long.

Juan, how troubled should we be about this?

WILLIAMS: Well, I mean, one way to look at it is what we know from polls. The Washington Post did an overnight poll. Basically about 60 percent of the American people said, you know, you have to do what you have to do to fight terrorists, and this is part of a war on terrorism.

Now, Newsweek has a poll out that indicates about 53 percent of Americans, in a sort of, you know, longer-term poll with greater numbers of people, say that the government has now gone too far.

But I think that there are red flags being raised. The most immediate is for General Hayden and his confirmation as the new head of CIA. I think lots of people are going to question his credibility.

Clearly, the extent of these programs has not been fully divulged to the American people and certainly not to the Congress of the United States. And here we are going forward with Hayden, who's been the mastermind, and so the questions are going to, I think, press against Hayden, although it looks as if he still is safe to get confirmed.

WALLACE: Brit, before you weigh in, I want to play a tape of Hayden, because there has been this question raised about how forthcoming the president and General Hayden have been about the whole program and the nature of it, obviously not the specifics.

Here is what General Hayden had to say early this year about the program. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL HAYDEN, CIA DIRECTOR-DESIGNATE: This isn't a drift net out there where we're soaking up everyone's communications. We are going after very specific communications that our professional judgment tells us we have reason to believe are those associated with people who want to kill Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Brit, clearly, General Hayden was talking there about the eavesdropping, not this phone database. But on the other hand, there clearly is more of a drift net than he let on there.

HUME: Well, it's not for eavesdropping. I mean, you know, we have to be clear about the meaning of words here. They matter. I must say, Chris, that I don't think that this -- I mean, there's a better example than this story and the reaction to it of the remarkable unseriousness of the atmosphere in Washington these days.

Senator Leahy saying that these phone records were being collected for the heck of it -- does he really mean that? Does he really think that? We know why these records are being gathered.

We know that it's because if you intercept an Al Qaida or capture an Al Qaida cell phone, or you know what an Al Qaida-connected terrorist's telephone that they're using is, you run that number against this massive database to see who might be telephoned in the United States and who, in turn, or what, in turn, calls were made from that number. I don't know of a better way to do that.

There's no evidence that names are being gathered except perhaps in cases where they really find something. I must say to you, Chris, if the NSA wants to scan my telephone calls to see if anybody called me from Al Qaida, that's perfectly all right with me, and I suspect it would be with almost every American.

This is probably a very good idea. The sensation over -- USA today publishes a story, huge front-page headlines, opens up to massive body of gray type inside. You have to go to page 5 in a sidebar to find out that well, no, they're not gathering names and addresses. Yes, it's true, names and addresses are easily gotten. But you can see what they're doing here. It's not much of a...

WALLACE: Wait a minute, let's let everybody else in. LIASSON: The idea of data mining -- and the thing that was curious to me about the story is that the New York Times did report this about the same time that they reported the other NSA...

WALLACE: Not in as much detail. When you read the Times story, they say this was...

LIASSON: There were several articles...

WALLACE: ... an extension.

LIASSON: There were several articles, and I remember reading them and saying hmm, data mining, I wonder what that is. It was different. They talked about the phone companies. I mean, this -- the USA Today did not break this story, but they certainly gave it the kind of prominence. And hey, it's to their credit that USA Today had such impact that everybody reacted to it.

HUME: Oh, please.

LIASSON: But the fact is that -- well, I mean, they got a bigger reaction than the New York Times did when they reported the same story.

Look, I think that you saw this with the NSA story, warrantless wiretapping, and this, that it seems like this is not going to be a political issue that the Democrats can use against the Bush administration.

However, there certainly are questions. Congress wants to know exactly what it is. Data mining, apparently, from experts who have been interviewed, has been going on since World War II. It's looking through massive amounts of traffic, phone traffic or Internet traffic, to see if there are patterns that emerge that you can use to help you track something.

You know, the content -- getting a warrant to actually listen in on a phone call is something different.

KRISTOL: Yes, maybe the Bush administration should have gone to Congress and gotten authorization for this at the beginning. I think that's kind of a close call.

There's some advantage, on the other hand, to having some secrecy, though this program seems to be one that would be less important to keep secret than other kinds of government efforts in the war on terror.

I think this will come out fine. Congress will have hearings. The administration will defend itself. It was very good that the president came out and quickly defended himself on Thursday.

I do think the Bolten White House is being more effective at just dealing with the news every day. We saw that with the -- they got the tax cuts through Wednesday, and not a trivial legislative -- the extension of the tax cuts, not a trivial legislative accomplishment. They're going to get Judge Brett Kavanaugh through as an appellate court judge. They defended this program pretty effectively, quickly. They're taking the lead on immigration. And I actually think things are turning up for the president, hard as it is to believe.

WALLACE: Let me ask you, though, because we've got a little over a minute left and I want to ask you all to turn -- General Hayden, architect of this program, in his former job as head of the National Security Agency, up now for confirmation as CIA director. I'd like a quick whip around. Do you think he's going to get through?

WILLIAMS: Yes, I think he'll get through, but the question remains -- and this is what I was going to say to Brit earlier -- why not have an American debate about this, if you think it's so right and legitimate and in keeping with our values in a democratic society? If you believe that a statute could be passed, why not? Why have secret programs, secret prisons, secret torture?

HUME: Well, because, Juan -- and this is another case of -- wonderful example of it -- because, Juan, believe it or not, we're at war, and...

WILLIAMS: And therefore, we should stop being a democracy, Mr. Hume?

HUME: Oh, please.

WILLIAMS: You're the tough guy and you're going to tell everybody what's right for us in the country? Come on.

HUME: No. What I will say about this is that you have different expectations and a different atmosphere when we're at war. And I think that since the administration believes we're at war and is deadly serious about it and thinks it's the top priority.

I think that in the press and in the political opposition, there's a very different attitude. The war is kind of a figurative thing, not a real thing, and that accounts for the excitement over stuff like this.

WALLACE: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. So much for the whip-around. Thank you, panel. That's it for today. See you next week.

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